Legal humor. Seriously.

Lawsuits (Ridiculous)

July 06, 2015

It might be easier at this point to compile a list of those Donald Trump hasn't sued, but in this Daily Beast article ("Donald Trump Sued Everyone but His Hairdresser"), Olivia Nuzzi has put together an impressive partial list of Trump's targets.

They include Scotland, which Trump sued in 2011 for allegedly breaking a promise not to build an offshore wind farm near the site of a planned golf course and hotel. I'm not sure what the damages would have been, unless he was claiming that windmills spoiled the view. In any event, he lost.

Arguably the most ridiculous of the selected lawsuits (aside from the previously covered"spawn of orangutan" lawsuit against Bill Maher) is a 1995 case against the state of New York in which Trump complained that it had allowed a video game similar to Keno to be played in the state's bars and restaurants. Trump argued that this would bring "tremendous amounts of crime" and "destroy businesses" in the state, the report says, because people would get addicted to gambling and become unable to pay rent. Coincidentally, at the time Trump owned casinos in Atlantic City where Keno and other games of chance could be played, but of course those were in New Jersey.

Other Trump targets of actual or threatened lawsuits have included:

His ex-wife Ivana

Merv Griffin

The Chicago Tribune

New Jersey

New York City

Palm Beach, Florida

Trump Entertainment Resorts

Rosie O'Donnell (for claiming he was broke)

Lawrence O'Donnell (no relation)

Mac Miller (for rapping about him)

ABC (for planning a documentary)

The Eastern Pequot tribe

Miss Pennsylvania USA 2012

He actually won that last one in arbitration, although TMZ claims that Miss Pennsylvania's lawyer (who she sued for malpractice) ended up paying most of a $1 million settlement with the Trumpster. So he does occasionally win.

July 08, 2014

He is only the latest in a very long line of individuals who cannot understand that filing a lawsuit will not reduce the mockery level.

The Smoking Gun has a copy of the poorly written complaint (which seeks $10 million in damages) and the video clip pictured above. The plaintiff claims he was subjected to an "unending verbal crusade" by the ESPN announcers, but actually most of the alleged comments appear to have been posted by individuals at Major League Baseball's site.

He is also suing the Yankees, for a reason that is not explained in the complaint but, if revealed, will be dumb.

May 21, 2014

"I say this with the greatest respect," continued Justice E.M. Morgan, "as both the Plaintiffs and the Defendants are educated professionals who are successful in their work lives and are otherwise productive members of the community." But when it comes to this case, he wrote in an opinion released today, they are "acting like children."

The opinion in Morland-Jones v. Taerk has to be read to be fully appreciated—it's an outstanding example of its category. That category being something like, "Opinions by Canadian Judges Who Think the Parties Are Being Ridiculous and Enjoy Telling Them So in Humorous Terms." (One previous example here.) It is also an example of the sort of utterly ridiculous case that so often arises out of a petty dispute between neighbors.

The parties, two couples who live next door to each other, "do not seem to like each other," Morgan wrote with true Canadian understatement. They have in fact hated each other for years. Two of plaintiffs' 11 security cameras point at the defendants' front door and yard, and plaintiffs record everything they do. This was clear from the video that plaintiffs brought to the hearing on their motion for injunctive relief. For example, "the hearing before me started off with ... a short excerpt from security footage shot by the Plaintiffs several years ago, in which Ms. Taerk is seen performing a 'poop and scoop' after a dog did its business on her front lawn." Her crime, it appears, was in disposing of said poop in the plaintiffs' trash can rather than the defendants' own. But as the court pointed out, "there is no claim for pooping and scooping into the neighbour's garbage can...."

And "[t]he 'dog feces incident,' as counsel for the Plaintiffs calls it, is [the] high point of [Plaintiffs'] claim." (Emphasis added.)

The defendants had not been "entirely innocent," the court noted. They realize that the plaintiffs don't like to be recorded—though they record everyone else—and so defendants do precisely that, using cell phones and dictaphones and making sure that plaintiffs see them doing it. Oddly, Ms. Taerk denied she had actually taken any pictures, insisting that she had only been pretending to do so (to irritate them, that is). But of course that "explanation reflects more malevolence than what it attempts to exclude."

All in all, the parties' antics constituted "a repeated form of hijinks that could, if a sponsor were found, be broadcast and screened weekly, although probably limited to the cable channels high up in the 300s," Justice Morgan wrote.

"[A] court cannot order the Defendants to be nice to the Plaintiffs," he observed, and so "there is no serious issue to be tried in this action." In dismissing the case, he did not award costs to anyone, as "[e]ach side deserves to bear its own costs."

Really, I've only scratched the surface here. It's great stuff.

Justice Morgan was also in the news last year when he declared William Assaf a "vexatious litigant," hoping thereby to put an end to a 40-year, 30-lawsuit legal war between members of the same family as well as certain other unfortunates who, he wrote, "doubtless to their lasting regret, stumbled into the Assaf family maelstrom." That decision is probably also worth looking up.

Although, surprisingly, the complaint appears to be frivolous, Mr. Purisima does seem to have gotten his math right, although he could have simplified the demand a little. According to this very helpful big-number page, a "decillion" in American usage means a 1 followed by 33 zeroes. "$2,000 decillion" therefore could of course be written as a 2 followed by 36 zeroes, which is in fact what Anton has in parentheses. So good work there.

But it turns out that a 1 followed by 36 zeroes is an "undecillion." (This is a little embarrassing, since I've been going around using that term to refer to any number that is not a decillion, but I guess that was causing a lot of confusion anyway.) So he could have simply demanded "two undecillion dollars," and (after a little research) everybody would still have known what he was talking about. Sure, it would be more fun to call it "two octillion gigadollars," but that's getting a little ridiculous.

Okay, it's a lot more fun to call it "two octillion gigadollars," as confirmed by an ongoing experiment in which I say that out loud in my office and then laugh at it.

Not that it matters, because these demands have long since outstripped the total amount of money in the world. That was already the case back in 2008, when we were only talking about quadrillions. See "Katrina Victim Sues for Three Quadrillion Dollars," Lowering the Bar (Jan. 12, 2008). At that time, I calculated that the plaintiff was essentially demanding the entire U.S. gross domestic product for the next 228 years (give or take), and that if he were paid in pennies (as he should have been) it would take 301 stacks of pennies, each stack high enough to reach Saturn, to satisfy the judgment.

Less than two years later, Dalton Chiscolm decided it would take a lot more than that to send a message to Bank of America, which he sued for 1.784 septillion dollars (a.k.a. 1,784 billion trillion dollars, I think). "If he thinks Bank of America has branches on every planet in the cosmos," Reuters then quoted a math professor as saying, "then it might start to make some sense."

That remained the record-holder despite John-Theodore: Anderson's (stupid punctuation in original) effort in this 2010 case, in which he started out demanding a relatively restrained $918 billion for breach of contract but then got mad and amended his complaint to make it $38 quadrillion. That still only put him in second place, though.

All of them have now been eclipsed by Anton, of course, who I've just noticed is also seeking punitive damages, I guess in case an undecillion-dollar judgment is not enough to send a message to the various defendants. Exactly what each of them did is not entirely clear, although the plaintiff claims a dog bit him on the middle finger and that he's routinely overcharged for coffee at LaGuardia Airport, among other things. (Also, some Chinese people took his picture without permission.)

The complaint does allege that the defendants' acts caused damages that "cannot be repaired by money" and are "therefore priceless." Granted, no amount of money can truly compensate a plaintiff for what he or she has lost, but two octillion gigadollars would be a pretty good start.

April 15, 2014

I'm a big fan of using images in briefs and opinions when that is appropriate, and it's hard to think of a more appropriate case than one involving a lady in a banana suit.

The specific case I'm thinking of (in case there are more than one) is Conrad v. AM Community Credit Union, decided on April 14 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Chicago Tribune; thanks, Tom). Those of you who know something about that circuit won't be too surprised to know the opinion was written by Judge Richard Posner, one of the nation's best legal writers and a man not afraid to stick a banana picture in a court document.

The case involved a "singing and dancing entertainer (also a writer and motivational speaker" who "calls herself the 'Banana Lady' and performs wearing a costume in the shape of a giant banana," Posner wrote. "You can watch her dancing the 'Banana Shake' on YouTube ..."

... and "[h]ere is a still photo, which is in the record, of her performing in her costume" (see top right).

The Banana Lady had sued some people who hired her to perform a singing telegram, according to the opinion. She claimed that members of the audience had posted photos or videos of her performance on the internet, something she claimed was a copyright violation. Posner disposed of that in a hurry. Performances cannot be copyrighted unless they are "fixed in any tangible medium of expression," he wrote, and Banana Lady did not record this one. The photos or videos could have been reproductions of copyrighted elements of the performance, or maybe derivative works (probably not). But even if they were, the court held, Banana Lady could not sue the arrangers because (as requested) they told the audience not to post images on the internet, and she did not sue any audience members. "So her suit has no merit," Posner wrote on page six.

"But we cannot end this opinion," he continued, without noting Banana Lady's "abuse of the legal process by incessant filing of frivolous lawsuits." She has filed at least 17 mostly frivolous cases since 2009, including one against people who didn't post a video of a different performance. She had demanded $40,000 for that privilege, and they declined. She then argued that their decision not to pay her constituted "tortious interference with her business," an argument that did not prevail and caused me to check the "Brilliant Arguments" box for this post.

The court ended its opinion by suggesting that the district court, which has been allowing her to file in forma pauperis (without paying a filing fee) should stop doing that at least until she pays prior litigation debts. That seems like a good idea.

This is not, of course, my first post involving someone in a banana suit, although it has been a while. See "Police Stop Knife Fight Involving Banana Boy," Lowering the Bar (Jan. 2, 2006). In that case, though, I think the fruit-clad perp was wrongly accused.